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The government has missed the opportunity to help women realise that marital rape is wrong, according to the Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO).

WAO executive director Sumitra Visvanathan said the organisation had witnessed several instances where women were unaware that they should not be coerced into having sex, whether they were in a marital relationship or otherwise.

A week ago, All Women’s Action Society (AWAM) and DAP Damansara Utama assemblywoman Yeo Bee Yin launched a rape awareness campaign with the tagline “No Excuse For Rape”. It didn’t take long before the topic of marital rape came up, and to my dismay, there were people defending it in the name of Islam.

Muslim women's group Sisters in Islam has gained leave for judicial review of July’s fatwa declaring them ‘deviants.’ The case pits Sisters in Islam against the Selangor Fatwa Committee, the Selangor Islamic Religious Council and the state government in a dispute over the jurisdiction of religious courts.

Last week defenders of Islamic law received a publicity blow when a Malaysian court evoked Sharia law to allow a man to divorce his wife by text message.Yes, text message. As in: "Am dvrcng u".

The decision was, quite rightly, condemned by women's rights groups in Malaysia, who say to condone such frivolity with Islamic law highlights the way it is inherently bias towards men and leaves women with the short end of the stick.

Local prosecutors are pursuing a statutory rape charge against 40-year-old restaurant manager Riduan Masmud, who allegedly had sex with the girl in a parked car outside the Sabah state capital Kota Kinabalu in February. The girl is now 13 and his defense is that he married her.

IMOW: You are the founder of Sisters in Islam (also known as SIS) in Malaysia and were at its helm for twenty years before stepping down. SIS exists to bring justice to women as accorded to them by the Quran. What first inspired you to create this organization?

Women Living Under Muslim Laws, the Violence is not our Culture Campaign, and Justice for Iran are pleased to announce the release of a new publication: Mapping Stoning in Muslim Contexts. This report locates where the punishment of stoning is still in practice, either through judicial (codified as law) or extrajudicial (outside the law) methods.

"It's easy to heap unkind words on our family but nobody has tried putting themselves in our shoes,” said Mak Yah, 50, the mother of medical assistant Mohd Ashraf Hafiz Abd Aziz, 25, the transgender whose application to change his name to Aleesha Farhana was rejected by the High Court here on Monday. Eyes brimming with tears, Mak Yah lamented to the New Straits Times the pain and humiliation she felt when she read the negative comments about her and her husband, Abdul Aziz, 60.